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The State of the Blog - Part I

First off, I want to sincerely thank everyone for both the compliments and criticism of my blog.  I wanted total honesty and I'm happy to say that is exactly what I got from many of you.  Everybody's comments have been read, and believe it or not, I will take some (but probably not all) of your ideas and implement them.  If you happened to miss the post yesterday, by all means, click the above link and make your voice heard too!

As for the actual blog redesign, I was shocked that the overwhelming opinion seemed to be for me to NOT change my blog design.  Sure, there were certain elements that could be tweaked, but no one seemed keen on me doing a total redesign.  I guess that means my original choice of my blog design was a solid one, but I can't seem to get a redesign out of my head.  I'm going to keep playing around with different designs to see if one "sticks" but until then, no big changes on that aspect.

As a few of you mentioned, no matter what, I will overhaul the sidebar.  Believe it or not, the ads are going to stay because they actually work.  Sure, I won't retire from the income (at least not yet), but at my current rate, I ought to be able to buy a box of Allen & Ginter (next year) based entirely on ad income.  I'm happy with that.  Some of the other elements will be changed though...and I'll look into ways to make my blog load a bit faster.  I tend to have a lot of pictures in each post (except this one of course) so maybe I could have fewer posts showing on the main page or something.  I also can eliminate some of the other sidebar stuff as many of you mentioned.  We'll see exactly what happens over the next week or so.

Finally, I have all the group break packages packed up and ready to go in the mail.  Actually, the first third went out Monday, the second third went out today, and the last third will go out tomorrow.  I hate to bring a bag full of envelopes and take 30 minutes at the post office...people don't appreciate that behind me in line either.

Now that the sixth group break is out of the way, it's time to start thinking about the seventh.  This will probably be my last group break for quite some time - as I think I mentioned before, I'm going back to school to earn my Ph.D. while simultaneously teaching at my current institution (a five hour drive all told for the day where I have to be at both places).  I am sure my blogging time will slow way down in August/September and continue to be rather slow throughout the school year.  Thus, I really want to do one more break (and hopefully the best ever) before I call it a hiatus on time-consuming, non-essential tasks.

So, for you:  a homework assignment.  I have a deal with Baseball Card Exchange where I buy all (or at least most) of my boxes for my recent group breaks.  I would like you guys to check out their site and tell me which box (or boxes) you would like to see in the break.  I have no preference on years - it can be newer stuff (late 00s), early 90s stuff, or anything else you see.  It can be low-end, mid-range, or high-end stuff.  I like to strike a balance to keep costs as low as possible but still offer the chance at some nice stuff for some people (such as a Cal Ripken Jr. autograph like we had in the last break)!

Let me know what you would like to see in a break in the comments below or via email.  And again, feel free to sound off on my blog redesign questions from yesterday.

And finally, one more blog update for you right now.  I plan to become a better blogger.  Let that sink in for a moment - I truly do listen to you guys (and girls) and have figured out a few of my blog's key weaknesses that need to be addressed.  It is my sincere hope that you'll find my blog much more enjoyable, readable, (and perhaps), slightly more varied than recent times.  I won't be neglecting trade posts or group breaks of course, but I will be adding in some other things.  I've been brainstorming a bunch of ideas - and since I feel confident that I can deliver a better experience, you get to hear that first.  More details will be announced before too long!

Comments

  1. I'm a new follower to your blog and I must say the layout is pretty good. The ads don't really bother me because a lot of sites use them (including mine) and I have learned to overlook them for the most part.
    I know it is tough to refrain from changing layouts sometimes but little tweaks here and there would be the best way to go imho.

    I really like your trade stack idea, and might do something like that on my blog in the future to help get some cards I need for my collections.

    I look forward to participating in a group break with you in the future. Any mix of different boxes would be cool with me.

    Keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:32 PM

    I read your site in Google Reader, unless I deign to comment, so you can design away and it won't matter a whit.

    I haven't heard - you got my Spring Cleaning cards, right?

    ReplyDelete

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